A Broadway story

My wife and I had lunch yesterday with an old friend of her family's, Harvey.

Harvey lives in the small Missouri town where he was born 96 years ago but winters here in Southwest Florida where, most days, he plays 18 holes. He is in amazing shape, both physically and mentally.

Following a fender bender, Harvey has become hesitant to drive long distances, so he hires someone to drive his mini-van from Missouri to Florida and back every winter. Over lunch he mentioned he has hired a driver to drive him across the state this week to visit an old friend, Lucy, who lives in Palm Beach. 

Lucy, Harvey explained, grew up in a nearby town that was even smaller than his hometown, which had a state teacher's college. When, in the late 1930s near the end of the Depression, it came time for Lucy to go to college, her parents asked Harvey's parents if Lucy could board with them. Harvey and Lucy, who are a year apart in age, lived under the same roof for three years until shortly after Pearl Harbor when Harvey enlisted.

Harvey said Lucy was bitten by the acting bug early on. Right after college, she took off for New York to find fame. But the only job she could find was as an usher in a Broadway theater. One of her duties, after the patrons exited, was to turn up the seats so the janitors could clean underneath them easily.

One evening Lucy found a diamond necklace that clearly belonged to a woman of means. She turned it in to the front office. The next day, the manager informed Lucy the woman had called the theater, desperate to know if her necklace had been found. When she learned Lucy had turned it in, the woman said she wanted to meet her and give her a reward.

“Oh no,” Lucy told the woman when she offered her a generous cash reward. “I was only doing what I was raised to do. All I could think about was how awful you must have felt losing something that valuable.”

The woman told Lucy that, if she wouldn’t take her money, she would find another way to repay her. She was as good as her word. Turns out she had connections on Broadway, and arranged for Lucy to audition for some bit parts … which led to bigger parts … which eventually led to supporting roles in a couple of B movies in Hollywood. It was in Hollywood that Lucy met a Broadway producer from an old New York family who had sold the rights to one of his plays. They married, adopted a daughter, and Lucy retired from acting.

Harvey and his wife stayed with Lucy and her husband whenever they visited New York. He said the couple lived in grand style. Lucy's husband went on to produce some of the most successful plays ever to appear on Broadway and in London's West End. Harvey and Lucy have stayed in touch over the years by phone and mail.

Lucy and her husband retired to Palm Beach twenty years ago and, a few years ago, her husband died. Harvey called her the other day and she invited him to come over to see her. Lucy told him she is losing her sight. Though she lives in a condo overlooking the ocean, she can no longer see it.  She told Harvey that the daughter she and her husband adopted, now in her late sixties, has turned out to be the greatest blessing imaginable and takes good care of her. And she told Harvey that, before her sight goes altogether, she wants to see her dear friend's face one more time. Harvey says he can’t wait to see her either.

The world is complicated. Actions have consequences, but things don't necessarily work out the way one expects. Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people.

It was lovely to hear the story of a stage-struck girl who had no idea, that night nearly 75 years ago when she turned a rich woman's necklace in to the front office, that, sometimes, things can work out even better than you planned.

None of the above

I’ve voted in every presidential election since 1972. In each, there was at least one candidate I felt could do a, if not stellar, decent job.

Not this time around.

Never in my lifetime has there been such a sad and appalling aggregation of out-and-out losers and, in some cases, certifiable lunatics vying to lead this country. I’ve watched almost all the debates, both Democrat and Republican, hoping to find one I could support. None of the candidates from either party are palatable choices. And most people I know agree with me. Recapping our choices:

Donald Trump: He’s inarticulate, brash, thin-skinned, offensive to women, African-Americans and Hispanics, and has no vision other than making “deals” to rid our country of all he says is wrong with it, the details of which are vague if they have been thought through at all. America would be at war with half the world within five minutes of him taking the oath. His base of support is working class citizens fed up with standard politicians who have brought their country to the brink of mediocrity. So was Hitler’s.

Marco Rubio: This guy can’t even manage his own family’s budget much less America’s. Think Michael Dukakis Lite.

Hillary Clinton: Want a progressive? She’s a progressive. Want a moderate? She’s a moderate. And, by the way, did you know she is a woman and that if you’re a woman and don’t vote for her there’s a warm spot in hell with your name on it? Not to mention she’s untrustworthy, corrupt, a liar and thief who, while her husband was busy issuing pardons to his political cronies on his last day of office, stole furniture and china from the White House. Even Bill and Chelsea don’t look that enthusiastic robotically clapping on stage behind her. Few genuinely like her. Many, many more despise her. As president, she would make Tricky Dick look like the Great Unifier.

Jeb Bush: While he and Hillary are polar opposites politically, they are equally arrogant in believing that, because of their last name, they are entitled to be coronated as president. The fact he actually thought anyone would support his candidacy after two failed Bush presidencies speaks volumes about Jeb’s grasp on reality.

Ted Cruz: A presidential candidate has to come across as likable to the majority of voters and he presents himself as not only cold and aloof but despicable and smug. Trump nailed it in last night’s debate – he’s a “nasty man,” perhaps the most unlikeable person ever to get this far in the primaries. Like Hillary, he is intelligent but Cruz is way, way too far to the right for a country yearning for moderation and reason. Nobody in his own party can stand him, and the few right-wingers who have endorsed him are tinfoil hat-wearers like Glenn Beck.

Bernie Sanders: Just what we don’t need – an angry, old, draft-dodging, tax-crazy, class warfare-mongering Marxist obsessed with picayune issues like paid birth leave which, considering the domestic and foreign issues facing our nation, in the scheme of things, should be near the bottom of the list of our priorities. His appeal is to an underclass that feels, not without some justification, that their birthright has been stolen by elected officials from both parties who, for years, have allowed Wall Street to control the country. He would have been an acceptable presidential candidate in the eighties. For the USSR. 

Ben Carson: Sounds stoned whenever he opens his mouth. Carson was a neurosurgeon for Chrissakes. He has no qualifications whatsoever.

John Kasich: A political hack straight from central casting. Unlike his fellow GOP contenders, he does his best to try to stay above the fray, focusing on his “accomplishments” as governor of Ohio, including a preposterous claim he created 400,000 new jobs. Like all the GOP candidates except Trump, he wears his religion on his sleeve; that’s certainly his right but it’s off-putting to many in our increasingly secular society. Plus, as my wife points out whenever she sees him, he has bad posture. He is, at this point, the only one I can imagine myself holding my nose to vote for in November but mine would be a vote against his opponent, not a vote for him.

My hope is that at this late date, someone – preferably someone accomplished, articulate, likable, inspiring and free of any political party affiliation – will come forward to throw his or her hat into the ring. People are fed up with politics as usual; hence the support for whack-jobs like Trump and Sanders. We need a president who is liberal to moderate on social issues, conservative to moderate on financial issues, a president who can keep us safe, who understands the separation of church and state, and can prioritize what we need. We need a president who will do what’s right for America rather than pandering to the people who control his or her political party in dealing with both domestic and foreign issues, and respectful enough of our Constitution to appoint Supreme Court justices who will do their jobs free of political pressure. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has indicated he is considering running as an independent but he is too far left for many voters and, like Ted Cruz, isn’t likable. That said, I’d vote for him. Hell, I’d vote for one of my dachshunds over any of the current candidates.

Is there anyone out there willing to step up to the plate? Anyone at all?

If so, thank you in advance from a grateful nation.  

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Ruby and her Man-Tailored Size 16 Petite Wedding Suit

My mother, Ruby, was widowed at 52.  Fifteen years later, in a barbershop where she had taken my sister’s sons to get haircuts, she ran into a high school classmate, Bill, a retired physician whose wife had died the previous year. Ruby and Bill, who hadn’t seen each other for decades, started talking about the recent 50-year reunion of their high school class, which mom had missed.

One thing led to another and six months later, to the surprise of their children, they announced they were getting married and set the date: January 1, 1982. “It’s going to be a small wedding,” mom said. “Just our families and a handful of close friends.”

My wife, Judy, and I were living in midtown Manhattan at the time. Mom, who had spent her life in small Missouri towns, was living in Columbia, Mo.

My parents were married in 1933, the height of the Great Depression. Back then, weddings in rural Missouri were, of necessity, simple affairs. Couples often went to their local pastor or justice of the peace to get married. There were no guests, other than a few people who were often pulled off the street to witness the ceremony and sign the marriage license. Mom and dad were married by his favorite college professor who was also a justice of the peace. After the ceremony, they stopped by the tourist camp her parents owned for homemade ice cream where, next to a gas pump, the bride posed for a picture.

Ruby on her first wedding day,
June 25, 1933

“When I married your father, I had no money. I ordered my wedding dress from the J.C. Penney catalog and paid $2.98,” mom told me over the phone. “This time around, I want something nice, something from New York, a man-tailored suit.”

“You’re gonna wear pants for your wedding?” I asked. “No,” she explained. “A skirt with a jacket made from the same fabric, like the suits men wear.”  My wife said she had never heard of a man-tailored suit either – it must be a term from the thirties or forties – but understood what mom was saying.

We settled on a date for mom’s shopping trip. Ruby’s sister Betty, who lived in suburban Washington, D.C., called and said she would take the train to New York and together, the two of them could have fun shopping for mom’s wedding suit.

Ruby and Betty arrived on a Thursday evening. I was surprised to see that mom, who was five feet one tops, had packed on a little weight since I had last seen her. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” Betty teased. Mom said she and Bill had been eating in restaurants a lot and that she wasn’t happy about the weight she had gained.

 “Well, what size are you?” Betty asked.

“Sixteen Petite,” mom replied.

The next morning before we left for work, my wife drew a map to show mom and Betty the locations of department stores that were within walking distance of our apartment – Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales and Bergdorf Goodman. “You’ll find exactly what you want,” Judy assured them.

But that night, we were surprised to learn that mom and Betty, who had grown up in a tiny town with fewer than 100 people, had come all the way to New York and bought only one thing between them, a bottle of nail polish remover.

“Nobody in this town has ever heard of a man-tailored suit,” mom complained with some bitterness. “The snotty clerks looked at me like I was from outer space. The few who did understand what I was saying said their stores don’t carry anything in Sixteen Petite. One of the Bloomingdale’s clerks asked where I was from. When I told her, she said, ‘I suggest you go back to Missouri to buy your suit if they have such things out there.'”

“Don’t worry,” my wife, an expert shopper, told her. “Tomorrow I’ll take you to Macy’s Herald Square. If you don’t find what you want there, we’ll go to Lord & Taylor. One of those stores will have the suit you want.”

The next morning, for some reason, I volunteered to accompany them. “You’ll find your suit then we can have a nice lunch,” I told them.

If you’ve read this far, there’s something you need to understand. Ruby and Betty didn’t talk in normal tones when they were in each other’s presence. They YELLED, but not because they didn’t like each other, they were devoted. Their mother had lost most of her hearing by the time she was in her forties and her daughters, when they were together with their mother, spoke LOUDLY to make sure grandma didn’t keep interrupting their conversation by asking them to repeat themselves. Grandma had been gone for nearly 20 years by the time Ruby and Betty got to New York but old habits die hard. All of us had grown accustomed to NONSTOP YELLING whenever the sisters got together.

The four of us took the subway to the world’s largest department store, Macy’s Herald Square. My wife, who knew the store like the back of her hand, guided us from floor to floor, to all the departments that sold women’s suits. While they didn’t find many Sixteen Petites, mom tried on probably a dozen skirts with matching jackets that fit and looked perfectly fine to us. But none of them were acceptable to her.

After lunch, we cabbed to Lord & Taylor where, on the first floor, my wife pulled off the rack a white wool suit she and Betty convinced Ruby to try on. Judy, Betty and I agreed it was, by far, the best-looking suit we had seen and told mom that she looked beautiful in it.  Ruby said no, it wasn’t what she had in mind; she wanted to continue looking.

And so we took the escalator up and up and up, stopping off at various floors where Ruby tried on suit after suit. There was a sale on winter coats on one floor. Mom and Betty both found coats they wanted to buy.

Standing at the cashier, Betty pulled out her Lord & Taylor credit card. “HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR YOURS?” she yelled at Ruby.

“I’M GOING TO WRITE A CHECK,” Ruby screamed back.

“I BET THEY WON’T TAKE AN OUT OF STATE CHECK,” Betty bellowed.

“SURE THEY WILL,” mom shouted in her Missouri twang.  “WHEN I WAS VISITING JERRY IN LEAVENWORTH I FOUND A DRESS IN A STORE THERE AND THEY TOOK A CHECK.”

Jerry, my brother, was an Army career officer who attended the Army’s Command and General Staff College in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, which also happens to be the home of a notorious federal prison with which it is often confused. The clerk’s eyebrows shot up when she heard “Leavenworth.”

“Ma’am” she said firmly. “I can’t take your check.”

“I’ll put it on my Lord & Taylor card,” my wife told Ruby. “You can write me a check.”

Ruby and Betty handed me their coats to carry and the quest for Ruby’s Sixteen Petite man-tailored suit resumed.

Mom tried on more – many, many more – suits on the upper floors that my wife, aunt and I decreed were perfectly fine, but none of them worked for Ruby who, we were convinced, was looking for something that didn’t exist.

As we were riding the escalator back to the first floor, Betty asked mom, “WHY DON’T YOU DO YOURSELF, YOUR GROOM, TOM, JUDY AND ME A FAVOR AND BUY THAT WHITE SUIT WE SAW WHEN WE CAME IN? YOU LOOKED GREAT IN IT.”

“I’LL TELL YOU WHY,” mom yelled back. “BECAUSE WHITE IS FOR VIRGINS … AND HE (pointing at me) IS PROOF IS THAT I … AM NOT … A VIRGIN.”

Every sophisticated New York head going up the up escalator and down the down escalator turned to see the non-virgin and her spawn. If the escalator had collapsed at that moment and hurled us all to our deaths it would have come as a relief.

Once we reached the first floor, we exited through the revolving door, got into a cab and went back to our apartment where I downed several stiff drinks. The girls, after a short rest, went out to visit some neighborhood boutiques but returned empty-handed.

Mom never did find the suit she had come all the way to New York to buy. She found it, as the Bloomingdale's clerk suggested she might, when she got home, a blue suit that matched her eyes. And on her wedding day, all of us agreed she looked beautiful in it.

As beautiful as any 68-year-old bride can look wearing a Sixteen Petite man-tailored suit.

Ruby's second wedding day, Jan 1, 1982

A house-hunting TV show I'd like to see

Now that I'm retired, I can watch TV  -- whenever I want, whatever I want.  

I've always loved reality shows that feature people shopping around for houses. There are a number of variations but all of them pretty much follow the same formula.

A couple with polar-opposite ideas about what they want visits three houses with their real estate agent. At the end of the show, the couple chooses one of the houses, which hardly ever meets the criteria they told the agent they wanted in the first place.

Nobody talks like the people on these shows. And nobody could possibly be as annoying as the house-hunters complaining about picayune details while overlooking flaws that are readily apparent to viewers. The couples and their real estate agents are obviously reading from scripts. I read somewhere that in many cases, the couples have already decided on a home before taping begins, so the whole show is bogus from the get-go.

Here’s the script for an episode I'd like to see.

Joe and Joanna move to Philadelphia

Voiceover (as a map appears with a line being drawn from Montana to Philadelphia): Joe and Joanna are relocating from Butte, Montana, all the way across the country to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(Cut to quick shots of Joe and Joanna as they stroll hand-in-hand down Market Street in Philly, walk in to a real estate office and sit in front of an agent. They chat animatedly as the voiceover continues...)

Eager for a place they can call their own, they have enlisted the aid of real estate agent Susie Green to find a home for their growing family that will come in within their budget of $39,000. Susie has her work cut out for her because Joe and Joanna have vastly different concepts of what their new home should be. Joe wants an ocean view and space to display his growing collection of assault rifles. Joanna dreams of a rambling turn-of-the-century-style farmhouse with an open concept living/dining/family room and an up-to-date kitchen with industrial grade appliances in Philadelphia’s tony Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, along with an ice skating rink in the backyard for their twins, Harding and Coolidge.

(Cut to Susie, Joe and Joanna standing in front of a door)

Today Susie is taking the couple to see what she thinks might be the perfect compromise.

Susie (opening the front door, gesturing for her clients to look around): Well, what do you think?

Joanna (looking down in horror): Uhh, that turquoise carpet. It’s God-awful. I hate carpet.

Susie: There’s hardwood underneath, but I don’t know what shape it’s in.

Joe: I do like the orange walls, though. Very tropical.

Joanna: You moron, this isn’t the tropics.

Joe (turning angrily to his wife): I’m sick of being dragged all over town looking for something that exists only in your mind.

Joanna: Look who’s talking Mr. "I've Gotta Have an Ocean View Or I'll Die." The nearest ocean is in New Jersey.

Susie: Let’s check out the kitchen, shall we?

Joanna: Is that a Viking range? I love to entertain.

Joe (contemptuously): You don’t entertain on a range. You cook on it.

Joanna (smugly): Your best friend found me very entertaining on top of our Viking range back in Butte.

Susie: To answer your question, it’s the original wood-burning stove from 1879 when this place was built. A nice historical touch, don’t you think?

Joe: I like these purple cabinets. Are they wood or laminate?

Susie: Laminate but we can change those out because this place is listed for just $19,000, so there’s plenty of room in the budget for renovations.

Joe: I like the laminate. What I don’t like is having a bathtub in the kitchen.

Susie: It doubles as the sink. If you’re in a hurry, you can take a bath and wash your dirty dishes at the same time.

Joanne: How many bedrooms?

Susie: None, this is a studio apartment.

Joe: Is there a window, so I can watch the chicks in their tight bikinis as they frolic on the beach?

Susie: No, but if we can pick this up at the right price there’s money in the budget to put a window in but … it will look out on the brick wall of the building next door. Why not tape a poster of a beach scene on the wall?

Joanna: Well, you have certainly given us something to think about. What else do you have to show us?

Susie: I think you’re really going to fall in love with the next place.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Voiceover (with quick cuts from previous segment of couple looking at apartment): Joe and Joanna and their realtor, Susie, just looked at an historic home in Philadelphia which, while it does have a roof, doesn’t have everything else they were looking for. Today, Susie is taking them to see another house.

Susie: I think you’re really going to fall in love with the next place.

(Cut to Susie, Joe and Joanna standing outside a frame row house)

Susie: I think you’re really going to fall in love with the next place.

Joanna: What are you, stupid? That’s the third time you’ve said that.

Susie: I know. The directors never have enough material for a 21-minute show so they make us repeat ourselves again and again. Plus, they assume people who binge-watch these shows don’t remember what they just saw because they all run together after a while.

Joanna: What is this neighborhood called?

Susie: Smacktown.

Joe: Are those hypodermic needles on the sidewalk?

(Susie opens the door.)

Susie: Yes, unfortunately many people in this neighborhood have diabetes and need insulin. Let’s go in, shall we?

Joanna: There’s carpet again. I told you I absolutely, positively detest carpet. Are you listening to anything I’ve said?

Susie: It could use a cleaning but the good news is, this place is $1,000 below your budget so you can have that done first thing.

Joe: Those people passed out in the front yard, do they come with the house?

Susie: I’m told they’ll be leaving soon.

Joanna (looking out window toward backyard): I don’t see a skating rink.

Susie: You can always put one in.

Joe: But, where’s my beach? I really don’t…

Joanna: There’s definite potential here. But we don’t want to commit until we see one more place.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Voiceover (as Susie, Joe and Joanna get out of SUV): Today, Susie is taking Joe and Joanna to Atlantic City, New Jersey, about sixty miles east of Philadelphia, where she’ll be showing them a house that ticks all their boxes.

(Cut to Susie, Joe and Joanna standing outside a farmhouse on stilts, overlooking the ocean.)

Joanna: This place looks interesting.

Susie: It is. Six thousand square feet, just completed by a master builder. The asking price is $12.2 million.

Joe (indicating beach in front of the house where people are swimming and sunbathing): Where’s my private beach?

Susie (opening door of house): You’ll have to share this beach, but wait 'till you see the private Olympic size pool out back.

(They step inside the foyer.)

Joanna: I was hoping for a skating rink for the boys.

Susie: In winter, the pool will become one if you don’t drain it.

Joanna: I love this open concept living/dining/family room and the beautiful kitchen equipped with quartz counters and industrial-grade professional appliances.

Joe: How many bedrooms?

Susie: Nine. All en-suite. 

Joanna: We only need four – one for us, one each for the boys, plus a guest room for my mother when she visits from Montana.

Susie: Believe me, you’ll have plenty of guests if you buy this house. Here’s the first of the guest rooms.

Joanna: Carpet again. I’m gonna puke.

Susie: Hand-woven in Persia just for this room. And if you don’t like it, there’s hardwood underneath, a rare mahogany from Mozambique, in a lovely herringbone pattern.

Joe: How far is this place from work?

Joanna: You haven’t worked since 2002.  

Joe: Is there an office in case I decide to?

Susie: Yes, and it has built-ins, a wet bar and, naturally, an expansive ocean view.

Joanna: But I wanted to live in the heart of the city.

Susie: Well, you’re just steps from the Boardwalk which has shopping, restaurants, muggers, everything you’d find in downtown Philly.

Joe: Looks like we have our work cut out for us.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

(Joe and Joanna in a restaurant, sipping wine)

Joe: I really liked those orange walls in house number one. House number two? I’m not so sure.

Joanna: Since the director said we have to eliminate one and act like it was an excruciating decision, I think we need to ixnay that one and look like we're agonizing as we do it. There’s no room for the boys’ skating rink.

Joe: Agreed. Let’s eliminate house number two.

(Cut to photo of house #2 as an “X” supers over it.)

Joe: What about the farmhouse by the sea?

Joanna: I can’t get past the carpet in the ninth guest bedroom.

Joe: Me neither. And it’s beyond the top range of our budget. What shall we tell Susie?

Joanna: I think we should …

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Voiceover (as viewers see quick shots of Joe and Joanna in the three houses they have been shown): Joe and Joanna are relocating their family from Montana to Philadelphia. They’ve looked at three houses. House number one is well within in their budget but both agree it has issues. House number two is larger, but they’re not so sure about the neighborhood, plus they’ve already eliminated it but the director said I needed to fill 15 seconds so I’m telling you again. House number three has almost everything they want but, it’s in Atlantic City, sixty miles east of Philadelphia, and it’s more than $12 million over budget.

(Camera closes in on Joe)

Joe: What shall we tell Susie? That we're taking house number one?

(Cut to close-in shot of Joanna)

Joanna: We should tell her we’re getting a divorce. I never realized what an idiot loser I was married to until I went house hunting with you.

Joe (as camera pulls back to reveal both of them): We’re not married, bitch. I never divorced my first wife.

Joanna: Well that’s good because Harding and Coolidge aren’t yours anyway. I’m taking them and going back to Montana.

Joe: Good. Haul your fat butt back to Butte and I hope I never see you again.

Joanna: Likewise, asshole.

(Joe and Joanna get up from table and go off in separate directions)

Voiceover: Joe and Joanna have decided to put their house hunt on hold for now.

(Cut to Susie at her desk)

Susie: I have to admit, I was disappointed. But I’m confident that when they decide to resume their search I can find them something they can make their own.

(Credits roll.)

The Old Poop

The weather here in Florida this month has been weird. Generally, January highs reach the low eighties and there's maybe one day of rain the whole month. This January we’ve been lucky to see highs in the low sixties. And it has rained. And rained. Then rained some more. On days there’s no rain, the sun refuses to shine. Today was another of those chilly, gray days. So this afternoon I plopped down on the sofa and watched a classic movie, "On Golden Pond," on Netflix, starring Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn as an elderly couple returning to their New Hampshire lake house for the summer.

I first saw “Pond” in 1982 in a movie theater in Hawaii, where my wife and I were vacationing. We were 30 and had just found out she was pregnant with what turned out to be our oldest son. We were living in New York back then, on East 49th, directly across the street from Ms. Hepburn, whom we saw often. Not that we were on speaking terms but it was impossible not to notice the world’s most famous actress sweeping the sidewalk in front of her brownstone, as she did every morning.

Fonda plays a retired professor, Norman Thayer, who is becoming crotchety, forgetful and suffers heart palpitations. Hepburn, who plays Ethel, his wife, was in the full throes of the Parkinson’s Disease that eventually killed her when the film was made. Her voice quivers, her body shakes.

At the end of the movie, as the Thayers are preparing to return home, Norman suffers a heart attack. Ethel rushes to his side and, in one of the better acting jobs in screen history, tells him how much he means to her while frantically calling the operator for help. (The operator. Remember her? It was always a her, wasn’t it?)

It’s one thing to watch that movie when you’re 30 and your best years are ahead of you. I remember appreciating the acting, writing, cinematography and scenery. But it would have been impossible for my 30-year-old self or for any 30-year-old to truly understand where the Thayers were coming from and what they were facing.

It is something else to watch it when you’re 64, retired, and get interrupted twice during the movie by calls from two medical offices setting up appointments and from the pharmacy telling you your prescriptions are ready for pick-up.

Somewhere between the first time I saw "Pond" and the second, I attained the perfect age but wasn’t smart enough to recognize it. And if I had been, what would I have done with that information?

Beats me.

Popping zits in Mexico

This is one of 213 vintage travel posters
from the collection we have amassed over the last 40 years.
 Once you read the explanation at the end of this post, you'll
understand why I couldn't resist using it as the visual.

My wife and I are in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, celebrating our 40^th anniversary. We are pretty much spending our time admiring the breathtaking view of the Sea of Cortez from our hotel balcony and reading by a different pool each day.

It is ridiculous considering we live in a Florida development that has its own private beach on the Gulf of Mexico and where the nearest pool is located 10 feet outside our bedroom door. But the last time I went to our beach was in April, and the last time our pool was used was by Bonnie, our ancient dachshund who lost her balance and fell in as she was drinking from it and had to be fished out. Perhaps if we had happy hour with half-priced drinks from 3 to 5 every afternoon we’d use it more often but, probably not. I’m only into pools I don’t have pay someone to maintain.

Last time we were at this hotel, in 2007, we signed up for massages in the hotel's swanky spa that set us back $300 (not including tips). This time, I’m a savvier traveler.

And so yesterday we drove into town to visit a spa that advertises hour-and-a-half massages for $50. My wife was skeptical but I pointed out that Trip Advisor readers rave about the place and that, for the same money we spent nearly ten years ago, we could have three massages each during our vacation. When we arrived for the first of our scheduled treatments, a Swedish massage and deep cleansing facial for her, and a deep tissue massage for me, the receptionist suggested, “Senor, why don’t you get a facial, too?”

“C’mon, do it, you’re just going to have to wait for me otherwise,” my wife urged. I said sure. Heck, it cost all of $40. Why not?

We were installed side by side in a couples treatment room for the massages. After those were finished, we were flipped over for our facials. I was under the impression a facial would consist of a steaming hot towel and cucumber slices over the eyes, after which mud or some other gunk would be applied that would leave my face with a youthful albeit temporary glow. I was wrong.

The girl started by applying a series of odd-smelling lotions, used a steamer to open the pores, then spent the rest of the hour popping zits I wasn't aware I had. I am very aware I happen to have a monster one on my nose at the moment, a zit that appears with predictable regularity, sort of like Haley’s Comet but bigger. She didn’t even go near that one. If it had erupted it would have put her eye out. It doesn’t seem fair to have gray hair and zits. One should have one or the other but not both at the same time. But I digress.

We hadn’t had breakfast when our treatments started at 11 a.m. By the time we finished at 1:30 p.m. I was famished. I had noticed a McDonald’s as we drove through the town and spent the last hour of my treatment fantasizing about a QP w/ Cheese but I was too embarrassed to suggest that. One has to have at least some class. It’s cheesy enough to take one’s bride to a discount spa. I wasn’t about to suggest lunch at Mickey D's. I had promised her a nice lunch by the marina.

In the parking lot my wife announced that she, too, was starving and said we ought to drive to McDonald’s and go through the drive-through window. “I was thinking the same thing,” I said, laughing.

So we did. Our Cuartos de Libra con Queso were delicious and we ate them in the car, arriving back at the hotel just in time for Happy Hour.  

After all these years we still disagree about many things -- politics for instance -- but when it comes to what's truly important, we think alike and always have.

It's kinda nice.

About the poster: On February 20, 1943, a Mexican farmer and his wife witnessed the birth of what became Volcan Paricutin, a natural phenomenon some consider one of the seven wonders of the modern world. It began as a fissure in a cornfield from which ash and stone erupted. A week later there was a pile five stories high … within a year two nearby villages had been buried in ash and lava … and nine years later, when the eruption ended, there was a mountain more than 1,300 feet high that attracted fascinated tourists from all over the world to see it. The Mexican government, obviously, loved all the dollars those tourists, (most of them American) brought with them and milked Paricutin for all it was worth. This poster, created for display by U.S. travel agents, notes that Volcan Paricutin was “born February, 1943” and was printed in Mexico by the Association Mexicana de Turismo.

No surprise here: Mizzou enrollment drops

As Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise surprise."

Fewer students are applying to my alma mater, the University of Missouri Columbia, as a result of actions by a group of student protesters, the football team, and administration and faculty members involved in a series of race-related incidents this past fall. 

To recap: In September, the university’s African-American student body president posted on Facebook that people in a pick-up truck yelled a racial slur at him. In October, an inebriated white student disrupted a group of African-American students, calling themselves Concerned Students 1950, as they were preparing for homecoming, prompting the university’s chancellor to order mandatory diversity training for students and faculty members. Shortly thereafter Concerned Students 1950 blocked a car carrying the university’s president as he was riding in the homecoming parade, claiming the administration’s response to racism was inadequate. Later that month a shit swastika was found in a dormitory bathroom stall. An African-American student in his eighth year at the unsafe-for-minorities university went on a hunger strike, demanding the school’s president and chancellor resign.

None of this received much attention outside of Missouri. It wasn’t until early November, when the university’s football team announced it was refusing to play unless the administrators resigned, that the story went national.

The day a group of faculty members announced they, too, were striking, the administrators threw in their towels. As the Concerned Students group was celebrating its victory on campus property, a faculty member, Melissa Click, an advisor at the university’s journalism school, blocked a student journalist from covering the celebration, claiming the students needed a safe space to heal. Click called for “muscle” to remove the reporter, a direct violation of the First Amendment that guarantees press freedom. A video of the confrontation between Ms. Click and the student journalist was posted on youtube, where it was viewed by millions.

The next day, the dean of the journalism school rescinded Ms. Click’s appointment and removed her from the J-school’s website, taking pains to point out she was actually on the faculty of the Department of Communications whose chair responded by issuing a series of PC statements including this gem: "We reiterate our commitment as communication scholars to the transformative power of dialogue; we believe words shape our realities and that engaging multiple perspectives is vital."

Ms. Click, whose current research projects funded in part by Missouri taxpayers include a study about 50 Shades of Grey readers and the impact of social media on fans' relationship with Lady Gaga, remains on the university's payroll and faculty members have petitioned administrators not to dismiss her. The university says it is unable to comment on faculty-related matters. 

In late November, unrelated to the protests but in another affront to the university’s reputation, a professor from Libya was arrested for beating a 14-year-old female relative for failing to wear a hajib to a local high school.

Though it has yet to be reported by the Columbia Missourian or NBC affiliate KOMU-TV, both of which are operated by the formerly-acclaimed J-school, or by the Columbia Tribune, a daily newspaper that doesn’t hesitate to suppress news that reflects unfavorably on the university around which the town's economy and its advertising base is built, Columbia's ABC affiliate last week obtained an internal university memo revealing that applications from:

- High ability students (those with ACT scores of 30 or more) have decreased by 7.7 percent.

- African-Americans and graduate students both have gone down by 19 percent.

- Out-of-state students have decreased by 948 and non-resident deposits have dropped by 25 percent versus two years ago.

Does this mean there will be fewer students at Missouri next fall? Not at all. It simply means the university, in order to maintain enrollment numbers, will need to admit undergrads with lower test scores and graduate students with less impressive credentials. In short, the University is going to be forced to enroll dumber students. One of Concerned Students 1950's demands was for a more diverse university. Ironically, the University of Missouri going forward will be less diverse in terms of the abilities, ethnicity and geographic origins of its students. It remains to be seen how many current students will transfer to other colleges come next fall but I’m wagering a substantial number will be leaving. What student in his or her right mind would want to be seeking a job with a newly-issued diploma from Poop Swastika U?

As the protests were coming to a head, the university had just launched a massive fundraising campaign entitled “Our Time to Lead,” the brainchild of the deposed chancellor. Common sense would have dictated the campaign be placed on hold but no, the rollout continued. I received a mailing the other day inviting me to an event for Florida alumni and have received several other mailings asking for contributions to help the University of Missouri “lead.”

I was tempted to reply,“ No, it’s not your time to lead. It’s your time to shut the fuck up and concentrate on fixing what’s broken” but that would have been a waste of time and/or a stamp and/or bandwidth. There do not seem to be many people left at the University of Missouri with enough sense to understand what I would have been saying.

And, apparently, there will be even fewer of them in the future.

PC Letters to Santa

Dear Santa: Nobody uses the term “Mrs.” these days. It's an outdated title that implies a woman is the property of her husband yet, in dozens of children’s books, your spouse is referred to as Mrs. Claus. Don’t you agree that future editions should refer to her as Ms. Claus? – Ms. Holly Day

Dear Holly: There is no longer a Mrs. or, for that matter, Ms. Claus. We were divorced on June 23. My new spouse should be properly referenced as "Mr. Dwayne Claus-Rosenberg."

Dear Santa: I’ve started a petition to ban radio stations from playing the racist song White Christmas. Your name at the top of it would lend credibility and help me collect more signatures. Will you sign it? – Melissa C

Dear Melissa C:  White Christmas isn’t about any particular race, it’s about snow you idiot. Bing Crosby is reminiscing about Christmases when he lived in a colder climate where snow, which is always white (except in highly polluted cities like Beijing), often covered the ground on December twenty-fifth. If you genuinely want to do something worthwhile this holiday season I suggest you ring bells for the Salvation Army, volunteer at a soup kitchen or bake cookies and take them to a lonely shut-in rather than expend energy trying to ban a song that evokes so much sentiment in people of all races who, unlike you, actually have the ability to think rationally.

Dear Santa: I’m sick and tired of my mother’s microaggressive behavior. She knows I’m a vegan yet, every year on the twenty-fifth of December, insists on serving ham, turkey, cookies made with butter and other disgusting foods she knows I can't eat. What should I do? -- AP

Dear AP: Bring your own food and eat that tasteless crap while everyone else in your family enjoys the traditional fare your mother was probably preparing when you were nothing more than a twinkle in your father’s eye.

Dear Mr. Claus: That’s a microaggressive reply. You’re assuming I have a father. I don’t.

Dear AP:  I can see why he took off.

Dear Santa: It makes my blood boil when I see TV commercials that say “Season’s Greetings” or when people wish me “Happy Holidays.” Christmas is a Christian holiday and Jesus is the reason we celebrate it. Don’t you agree? – Alpha Omega

Dear AO:  Christmas is indeed about celebrating the birth of Christ who famously advised his followers to "Love thy Neighbor." So let me ask you this: Have you ever met a Jewish person? Jews celebrate a religious holiday called Hanukkah at this time of year. Do you know any people of African descent? Some, but not all, celebrate a holiday known as Kwanzaa. How about a Brit? Ever heard of Boxing Day? It’s a holiday they celebrate on December 26. Did you ever stop to consider that all 6.9 billion inhabitants of our planet can celebrate the beginning of a new year at midnight on December 31 but only 2.2 billion of them classify themselves as Christian? “Happy Holidays” and "Season's Greetings" are generic greetings that recognize everyone, including you. Your friends, by all means, can wish you "Merry Christmas" but those who don't know you along with businesses that are trying to appeal to people of all ethnicities and beliefs shouldn't be made to feel badly for wishing you "Happy Holidays."  My suggestion for you in the new year is to get off your ass and travel someplace where you’ll have the opportunity to meet people who are different than you. Seasons Greetings -- SC

The Chinese candy bar wrapper atop our Christmas tree

We weren’t planning on doing much to observe Christmas this year until our son and daughter-in-law informed us they are flying in on Christmas Eve with our 21-month-old grandson. That jingled our bells big-time.

Step one was to procure a Christmas tree. Here in south Florida, that means an artificial one. I went online to read up on fake trees (polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene? prelighted or unlighted? metal hinges or plastic? incandescent or LED bulbs?) then visited half a dozen stores to find one that ticked all my boxes. I came home with a pre-lit nine-footer sold under the Martha Stewart brand name.

When I opened the box I was surprised to find something had been inserted between the top and bottom flap, a candy bar wrapper that, when I sniffed it, still smelled faintly of chocolate. It was printed in Chinese: Ms. Stewart, like every capitalist who hawks fake Christmas trees, has hers made in China.

As I assembled the tree, I found myself wondering about the person who slipped that wrapper into the box. It was, I assume, the worker responsible for the final step in the manufacturing process, taping the box shut.

Was that person a he or a she? Young or old? When did it happen? Last month? Last year? Did the wrapper wind up in the box because the worker was careless? Or was it placed there deliberately? Does the factory forbid workers from eating on the job and, not knowing what to do with the wrapper when a supervisor was approaching, did the worker stash it between the flaps to avoid being reprimanded?  

I can only guess.

The one time I was in China, in 1996, I toured a factory that was on the itinerary of a marketing association whose annual meeting I was attending in Hong Kong. We boarded a bus, were driven over the border –  Hong Kong was still British so our passports were carefully checked by armed customs officials –  and taken to a fancy country club for lunch. We then visited the factory, a grey, windowless building where dozens of young women were seated at row after row of sewing machines, poking holes in the heads of cheap rubber dolls through which workers in the next room were to weave strands of plastic hair. Guards stood watch at each door, a grim reminder to the workers that they weren’t free to come and go. We were later told the majority of the factory’s employees were from northern China and had migrated south, where most of the country’s factories are located, to find jobs. In return for working 12 hours a day, six days a week and living in cramped dormitory-styled housing owned by the factory, they could earn money to send home to their families. 

I don’t know if conditions in Chinese factories have changed much since then – I hope so – but have always remembered the workers at that doll factory and wondered what became of them. They’re middle-aged by now. Are they still working at the same factory? If so, do they still spend 12 hours a day poking holes in rubber doll heads or have they moved on to something else?

While many if not most of the presents we Americans will be unwrapping next week come from China, it’s important to keep in mind that the workers who make the smart phones, computers, toys, TVs, games and other gizmos we will be giving and getting are subjects of a totalitarian government that has little regard for them.

There’s no freedom of speech, the media is strictly censored, there are few safety nets for the poor or disabled, and hundreds of thousands of children languish in orphanages because, until recently, a woman who had more than one child was subject to arrest so unplanned babies were abandoned. My niece and her husband eight years ago adopted one of those babies, a malnourished two-year-old who had been left on an orphanage doorstep. Today that little girl, who probably has the highest IQ of anyone in our extended family, lives in a big rambling house, attends church services with a former president, is enrolled in an exclusive private school, plays the violin like a pro, earns straight As, and is doted upon by parents who will always make sure she has the best of everything. Her family’s gain came at the expense of a frightened mother who may well work in a factory like the one that made our tree and will never know what happened to that baby she left on the doorstep.  

Once my wife had trimmed the tree, we added a final decoration to one of its highest boughs -- a crumpled-up Chinese candy bar wrapper that will remind us, as we watch our grandson play with his new Chinese-made toys under our Chinese-made tree on Christmas morning, how lucky we Americans are.

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samX yrreM

This column was published in the Wilton (Conn.) Villager on Dec. 14, 2000.

For most people, Christmas is a time to celebrate life, the birth of a Savior. It’s time to spend with family and friends, to bask in good cheer, to count blessings. Christmas brings out the best in most people.

I am not one of them.

To me, Christmas isn’t about life. It’s about death, and every year is a struggle to get through it.

No violins please but my father died when I was 14. During Christmas of 1965, he was as ill as a human can be and still be classified as alive. He died shortly thereafter.

My father ran a general store in a tiny Missouri town.  Like many men of his generation, his work was his life and he worked six days a week, 12 hours a day. If I wanted to spend time with him, I had to be where he was. So, like my brother and sister before me, I started clerking at the store when I was eight. Every afternoon after school I would report to the store and stay until 7 p.m., closing time.

Christmas was a magical time to work in a country store. Not only did we sell exotic seasonal specialties like Brazil nuts, tangerines, egg nog and satin-y ribbon-shaped candies, we were stocked to the rafters with toys and practical Midwestern type gifts – scratchy flannel shirts, stocking caps, rubber galoshes, long underwear and the like.

Dryden’s Store had a large showroom window, facing the town’s block-long main street. My father let me decorate it each year, and it was the highlight of my holiday.

First I built a fireplace out of cardboard bricks. From the mantel I hung long stockings filled with nuts and candy canes. Around the cardboard hearth I placed empty boxes, wrapped in colorful paper and topped with curlicued bows made by the lady salesclerks. A plastic lighted three-foot Santa was stationed next to the fireplace. Strings of bubble lights draped with tinfoil icicles were tacked around the perimeter of the window. For my grand finale I always wrote “samX yrreM” in spray snow on the inside of the plate glass window, so people driving by could read it properly.

It was, in retrospect, as tacky as all get-out, but I was proud and dad always told customers it was my work.

My father was diagnosed with cancer just before Christmas, 1964, but nobody told me it was terminal. I knew he had undergone surgery in a St. Louis hospital, that he had lost weight, that his color was bad. But I was 13 and, as 13-year olds do, assumed the worst was over and things would return to normal.

I was wrong. Throughout 1965, his cough grew worse, he grew weaker and thinner. My mother, who had never worked outside the house a day in her life, took over the operations of the store.

It was our tradition – the only time of the year outside his work that my father and I spent time together – that on the Sunday before Christmas, we would go to a farm a mile south of town and chop down a cedar tree for our living room. But as Christmas 1965 grew nearer, there was no talk of a tree, decorations or of holiday plans.

One snowy night a few days before Christmas, I went to the farm, chopped down a tree, and dragged it home on my sled. When I called my mother out into the garage to see what I had brought home, she broke down weeping and told me there would be no Christmas because my father was going to die, and soon.

I had no idea. And I still have no other memories of that, my father's last Christmas.

I know this column may seem inappropriate at this happy time of year, even ludicrous. Here I am, a grown man with his own family, bellyaching about something that happened decades ago. I know people who have experienced losses far more profound than mine. Death is a part of life. I should have been able to get over it by now.

But losing a parent, as more and more of my middle-aged friends have found out lately, is something that’s hard to get over. Losing a parent at Christmas, when you’re 14, is enough to take away the wonder and joy of the holiday forever.

I made my annual holiday shopping trip to the mall today. In the atrium, carolers were singing “Auld Lang Syne,” the song the townspeople sing at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, the movie that reminds me of my father. I had to leave the mall, go sit in my car, and beat up on myself for being such a wuss, for feeling so sad when everyone around me seems so joyful. I want to feel joyful too but, dammit, I can’t.

And I’m not the only one. Mental health professionals report that millions of otherwise well-adjusted people plunge into funks at Christmastime. I bet a huge percentage of them lost loved ones at Christmas, the one time of year when everyone is supposed to be happy. For them, their wounds are ripped open anew every year the day after Thanksgiving and continue to bleed until New Year’s Day when the tree is taken down and the decorations are put away.

For most of the year I’m an upbeat kind of guy. But not at Christmas. And I want those of you who feel like me to know you’re not alone, and you’re not crazy.

I understand how tough it is to keep a happy face when everyone is singing about merry gentlemen and triumph in the skies and all you really want for Christmas is something you can’t have: To be once again – for one blessed moment – a boy writing “samX yerryM” in spray snow on the window of your father’s store, secure in the knowledge you’ll actually have one.

Postscript: I was 49 when I wrote the above column. Well, it’s 15 years later. I’m older and, supposedly, wiser. My sons are grown. My 20-month old grandson, the joy of our lives, will be arriving at our house on Christmas Eve. I suspect Santa will be generous with him.

Of all the columns I’ve ever written, "samX yrreM" generated the most response. I received dozens of emails, letters and calls from readers who said they felt the same way about Christmas as I do, and for the same reason – the loss of a loved one at, as the song goes, "the most wonderful time of the year." 

I still don’t like Christmas – Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, even Labor Day give me more pleasure –  but writing this column helped me work through it, and I’ve made a concentrated effort ever since not to let Christmas get me down. I realized it wasn’t fair to my wife and children, who had no reason to dislike the holiday, to wear my heart on my sleeve. 

That said, I can’t wait until New Year’s Day. 

Making biscuit

I woke up craving my mother’s biscuits.

Ruby, who died in April at 102, never called them “biscuits.” She called them “biscuit” –  not that she ever made just one. I’d stumble into the kitchen for a cuppa coffee and she would announce, “I just took some biscuit out of the oven, do you want one?”

Of course I wanted one or, more often than not, six or seven. Ruby’s biscuit was/were sublime. She said her mother, my grandma Judy (not to be confused with my wife Judy or sister Judy), got up early every morning to make a fresh batch. Mom used her mother’s recipe.

Ruby had a way with bread – white, wheat and French (which she started making in her nineties after she got her Kitchen-Aid mixer). Her loaf bread was excellent but her light rolls were out-and-out ethereal. All her descendants dreaded the day she would be gone and we’d never be able to taste them again. We begged her to write down her recipe but she wouldn’t, claiming she had been “keeping house” for 80 years and that the one thing she had learned over the years was that it was necessary to vary the amounts of the ingredients depending on how the yeast reacted with them. One of my nieces actually made a video and followed Ruby around the kitchen as she explained how much of everything she used, but then started throwing in a little more of this and a little less of that and talking about the size of yeast bubbles and how the warmth of the water to use depended on the weather outside, so she gave up.

I would never attempt to replicate mom’s yeast breads, but it occurred to me this morning that I might be able to make biscuit so I went online looking for recipes.

Many of them promised buttery, flakey biscuit which is, apparently, the criteria by which food critics judge them. Ruby’s were neither. Hers were dense and flour-y, and she didn’t use butter, she used lard (and, after her open-heart surgery at 85, Crisco). She would mix the dough by hand, roll it out, knead it with the balls of her hand, turning the dough as she went, then cut out the individual biscuit into circles using a juice glass.

I finally found a recipe at bettycrocker.com that promised nothing heroic and seemed straightforward, something even I could make. Amazingly, we had the ingredients on hand. So, I made a batch of biscuit.

They turned out OK – as my great uncle Forrest who was born in the 1880s would say, “tolerable” – but not great, and certainly nothing like mom’s. They were even a bit flakey.

Ruby would be proud I tried but, I can hear her now, she’d say she knew before I started that mine couldn’t possibly have turned out as good as her biscuit because, after all, I haven’t been keeping house for 80 years.

A quick interview with Bernie Sanders

This is the fifth in my series of exclusive interviews with candidates running for president. See Blog Archive (scroll down on right side) for interviews with previous subjects including Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Lincoln Chafee (who dropped out of the race following our interview) and Jeb Bush. 

TD: Though you’re running for the Democratic nomination, you make no bones about it – you’re first and foremost a Socialist. Who is your role model?

BS: Call Mocks.

TD: Your Brooklyn accent comes as a surprise to many who hear you speak for the first time. How’d a Brooklyn guy wind up representing Vermont?

BS: You gotta prawblem wit Brooklyn?

TD: Let’s change the subject. You go on and on about the importance of paid family leave but say very little about Isis. What would you do to keep us safe from them?

BS: Oy-sis isn’t our numba one prawblem, the numba one issue is that new muthas and fathas are being foist to go back to woik to suppoet their babies. Next question.

TD: How are we going to fund paid family leave?

BS: We’ll plant more trees. Money grows on trees. We'll take that money and use it to pay women, men and transgendahs who become new parents.

TD: What did the Clinton campaign, knowing there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell a Socialist could win, promise you in return for running and enabling Hillary to give the illusion she actually had to fight for the nomination?

BS: Oy got nuttin’ to say about dat. Noise tawking witch chew.

See how they run

For many Americans, Thanksgiving morning means watching the Macy’s Parade on TV.

Here in my Southwest Florida community it means an altogether different type of Thanksgiving parade, one comprised of hordes of skeletal young women in black tights, running maniacally up and down the palm-studded streets, looking miserable, as if someone is out to kill them.

Our development is located in a town where, according to the latest census, the median age is 59. Every Thanksgiving, planes full of visitors swoop in from points north to spend the holiday with parents, grandparents or in-laws. Many of those visitors are young women who have somehow gotten it into their heads that they should have the bodies of eight-year-old boys. For them, Thanksgiving is a day to feel anything but blessed because they know their mothers, grandmothers and mothers-in-law are going to insist they sit at the damn table with the rest of the family and eat.

The table will be laden with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, marshmallow-topped casseroles, pies, breads and other poisonous dishes they won’t be able to send back to the chef like they do in restaurants up north when they're trying to avoid eating because the chef, in this case, is someone who won’t hesitate to point out the obvious -- that, just this once, it won’t hurt them to eat because, frankly, they could stand to gain some weight.

And so, knowing that in a couple of hours they’re going to have to sit at the table and pretend they are enjoying themselves, they come to Florida and run. And run. I've seen at least two dozen pass my house already and it's not even 10 a.m.

It’s silly and sad at the same time.